PATHS Toward Successful Policy Advocacy: CHLPI Hosts Workshop at Together on Diabetes™ Summit

Via Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation
By: Kristen Gurley (J.D. ’15), Jason Nichol (J.D. ‘15), & Tommy Tobin (J.D. ’16)

ATLANTA, GA: On February 23rd, the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation (CHLPI) hosted a policy advocacy workshop in advance of the Together on Diabetes™ 2015 Grantee Summit. The Summit convened Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation grantees from across the nation to discuss health equity and the patient experience for people living with diabetes.

CHLPI and its Providing Access to Healthy Solutions (PATHS) project were among those funded through Together on Diabetes™, a philanthropic program of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation that seeks to promote health equity and improve health outcomes.

The purpose of the Pre-Summit Workshop was to help attendees establish and refine the policy goals that will make the interventions and services tested in their innovative research both scalable and sustainably funded in the long-term. In setting the table for future action, CHLPI presenters instructed attendees about the development and mechanisms of policy action and advocacy.

In her opening remarks, CHLPI Clinical Instructor Sarah Downer emphasized that “policy is the legal and regulatory framework” within which the attendees work. Downer then reminded the room that “it’s important to remember that we can reform” this framework.

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